AH Challenge: German Ukraine

How does one get an ethnic German, German speaking Ukraine prior to 1900 w/o World War conquest?

This has been tickling my brain recently.
 

Makty

Banned
How does one get an ethnic German, German speaking Ukraine prior to 1900 w/o World War conquest?

This has been tickling my brain recently.

Rephrase your question. Do you want a Germanic Ukraine or German Ukraine?

Because the latter would be impossible without conquering Russia. The closes scenario would be had obscure Austrian volk nationalists succeeded in rehabilitating the Carpathian Highlands (Moravians / Goral / Ruthenian) into Wend Highlanders.
 
Rephrase your question. Do you want a Germanic Ukraine or German Ukraine?

Because the latter would be impossible without conquering Russia. The closes scenario would be had obscure Austrian volk nationalists succeeded in rehabilitating the Carpathian Highlands (Moravians / Goral / Ruthenian) into Wend Highlanders.

Germanic then. That is to say, ethnically German, and speaking German or a dialect thereof.
 
Germanic then. That is to say, ethnically German, and speaking German or a dialect thereof.
Ethnically German and speaking German or a dialect means German to me, not Germanic. I think Susano will agree with me. :D


For Germanic, I once thought about having either the Ostrogoths or another tribe (Gepids maybe) stay in the Ukraine during the Volkenwanderung and spin off into a whole range of East Germanic languages.
 
Ethnically German and speaking German or a dialect means German to me, not Germanic. I think Susano will agree with me. :D


For Germanic, I once thought about having either the Ostrogoths or another tribe (Gepids maybe) stay in the Ukraine during the Volkenwanderung and spin off into a whole range of East Germanic languages.

Ok, I can see the distinction at this point now :p

Your solution would work out ok, but would give us a hefty divergence.
 
I can see Susano being angry here! :p;)

Well, there were Germanic peoples (Crimean Goths) in OTL's territory of the contemporary Ukraine (well, Crimea, which may or maybe not is Ukrainian ;) ), but they were very marginal. Best shot would be the Ostrogoths, probably.

Of course, problem is that the Ostrogoths were as "German" as the Dutch or the English... :p

Another possibility maybe is to have the Magyars never arrive in Europe which may result in the Bavarians eventually expanding into Ukraine. However, more likely is they won't make it farther than the Pannonian Basin.
 

Susano

Banned
Hm, Thomas must have used the edit button before my arrival now. Lucky for him :D

As for Germanic, while the Ostrogoths were probably (IRRC we dont actually know all that much about their Ukrainian realm) just a thin upper class while they had their realm in the area, its possible that if they stay, and there are no larger rider hordes influxes (thats a problem, though, those happened every century or so) that the area could be gothified, maybe...

Or some form of stronger German East Settlement. Either because the Pannonian Plain is fre,e but as EQ said it would probably stop there, or the Russians rely even more on German settlers, making at least South Ukraine ethncially German (but that would probably at best be a plurality, and even that is a rather unlikely, extravagant scenario...)
 
Ethnically German and speaking German or a dialect means German to me, not Germanic. I think Susano will agree with me. :D


For Germanic, I once thought about having either the Ostrogoths or another tribe (Gepids maybe) stay in the Ukraine during the Volkenwanderung and spin off into a whole range of East Germanic languages.

thats actually what popped to my mind at the mention of this...
Goths (Visi and Ostro ) would need to remain on the steps probably with their Gepid kinsman, or perhaps they settle and remain in Dacia instead. Ie they never enter the East Roman Empire then as federoetae (sp) and yes that makes them as Germanic as the English , Dutch or any of the Scandinavians
 
thats actually what popped to my mind at the mention of this...
Goths (Visi and Ostro ) would need to remain on the steps probably with their Gepid kinsman, or perhaps they settle and remain in Dacia instead. Ie they never enter the East Roman Empire then as federoetae (sp) and yes that makes them as Germanic as the English , Dutch or any of the Scandinavians
Well the Visigoths and Ostrogoths of Spain and Italy (as well as other Germanic tribes) got completely absorbed into the romance language speaking populations, so having them remain in the Ukraine does not necessarily mean that today's inhabitants of the Ukraine would be Germanic. You could argue that the inhabitants of Iberia and Italy had a much more advanced culture but the Goths could still get absorbed later on by the Slavs by sheer weight of numbers.
 
Well the Visigoths and Ostrogoths of Spain and Italy (as well as other Germanic tribes) got completely absorbed into the romance language speaking populations, so having them remain in the Ukraine does not necessarily mean that today's inhabitants of the Ukraine would be Germanic. You could argue that the inhabitants of Iberia and Italy had a much more advanced culture but the Goths could still get absorbed later on by the Slavs by sheer weight of numbers.
If the Goths manage to stay, I don't see that happening. The Goths were the ruling elite and would be regarded as having the superior culture. If anything, the Slavs, if they arrive, would be Germanized, not the other way around. The Slavs would just be one more group of poeple joining the already existing mish-mash of Greeks, Sarmatians, Turkish people and other remnants of groups that had passed through the Southern Ukraine.
 
If the Goths manage to stay, I don't see that happening. The Goths were the ruling elite and would be regarded as having the superior culture. If anything, the Slavs, if they arrive, would be Germanized, not the other way around. The Slavs would just be one more group of poeple joining the already existing mish-mash of Greeks, Sarmatians, Turkish people and other remnants of groups that had passed through the Southern Ukraine.

I'm not saying that it is not possible, only that it depends on other factors (population size, certain political circumstances etc). Just look at the modern Bulgarians: they came as Slavs in the 6th century, then got conquered by the Turkic Bulgars and then over time managed to slavicize their own Turkic Bulgar overlords. Today they are Slavic, not Turkic, even though the ruling class was Turkic.
 
How about much more massive settlement and colonization process by Catherine the Great. In OTL she invited Germans to settle in central, southern and eastern ukraine after neutralizing cossacks as effective independent force. Perhaps those cossacks migrate even more en masse than they did OTl to Kuban region and slowly left bank ukraine becomes very Germanized.
 
Disaster strikes in Germany, rendering much of the country inhabitable. As a result tens of millions immigrates to the Russian empire, which have been relatively sparred, the province of the "ukraine" is only the best place to settle.
 
Prevent the spread of Slavic languages, make Germanic languages prevalent, then top it of with a personal union between this "Rusland" state and the HRE in the early-modern age.
 
How about much more massive settlement and colonization process by Catherine the Great. In OTL she invited Germans to settle in central, southern and eastern ukraine after neutralizing cossacks as effective independent force. Perhaps those cossacks migrate even more en masse than they did OTl to Kuban region and slowly left bank ukraine becomes very Germanized.
While it's best chance to create German Ukraine (Germanic, i.e., Gothic Southern Ukraine existed in OTL (as previous posters have said), but it was just as German as modern Iceland is), even in Catherine's time Germanization was very hard to achieve. The problem is, while the Cossacks emigrated en masse, they always were minority group among the Ukrainians. Most of us at the time were peasants, and living next to the steppe, we had natural head start in its settlement. The Germans were more industrious (and subsidized by the Russian government), but they couldn't outbreed much more numerous Ukrainians, and the Government couldn't (and didn't wish to) stop Ukrainian colonization of the newly-conquered lands. Assimilation of the Slavic majority into culture of their prosperous German neighbours was hardly possible because of impenetrable religious barrier (how do you imagine Protestant propaganda among the Orthodox in the Orthodox empire? Or Orthodox propaganda among the German colonists, for that matter).
 

Susano

Banned
If the Goths manage to stay, I don't see that happening. The Goths were the ruling elite and would be regarded as having the superior culture.
The Goths were also the ruling elite in Italy and Spain. Hell, in Italy the Ostrogoths even tried a form of apartheid at first to retain their culture. But it still were simply too few. Of course, the Romance culture of Italy was of course, even if kinda beaten down from Roman times, quite sophisticated, which could not be said of the steppe peoples in the area...

If anything, the Slavs, if they arrive, would be Germanized, not the other way around.
GErmanicized or Germanicified :p
 
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